Delhi High Court grants Permanent Injunction against rogue torrent websites from illegally streaming Warner Brother's Contents.

Delhi High Court grants Permanent Injunction against rogue torrent websites from illegally streaming Warner Brother's Contents.

"The defendants have no real prospect of successfully defending the claim of copyright infringement" as observed by the Delhi High Court.

The Delhi High Court in a recent case granted a permanent injunction against 'rogue' torrent websites ("Defendant") from illegally broadcasting and transmitting cinematograph work/content/program/ owned by the Global Entertainment Plaintiff, Warner Brothers ("Plaintiff").

The suit was filed by Plaintiff alleging illegal and unauthorised distribution, broadcasting, and transmitting of Plaintiff's contents resulting in copyright infringement. Plaintiff further submitted an investigation conducted by a private investigator to probe the extent of illegal activities conducted by the Defendant.

Plaintiff thus prayed the following:

1. Issue an order and decree of permanent injunction restraining the Defendant from hosting, streaming, reproducing, or distributing their content

2. Issue an order and decree directing Internet Service Providers to block access to the Defendant.

3. Issue an order directing the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to issue a notification calling upon the various internet and telecom service providers registered under it to block access to the Defendant.

In lieu of the lack of dispute by the Defendant of its illegal activities, Single Judge Court bench, Justice Navin Chawla observed that " Additionally, there is no other compelling reason why the present suit should not be disposed of before recording of oral evidence, particularly in view of the fact that there is no dispute regarding the illegal activities of the defendant nos. 1 and 51 and in any event, in the absence of any challenge or opposition to the factual allegations made in the plaint, in view of provisions of Order VIII Rule 5 of the CPC, there is no occasion for recording of oral evidence in the present matter."

Whilst citing the landmark judgment of UTV Software Communication Ltd. & Ors. v. 1337X.to & Ors, the court observed that "The defendants have no real prospect of successfully defending the claim of copyright infringement and have further not chosen to contest the said claim….On basis of the evidence placed on record, and keeping in mind the factors identified by this Court in UTV Software (supra), I find that there is sufficient evidence to hold that the defendant no. 1 and 51 websites are "rogue websites" and that this is a fit case for passing a summary judgment invoking the provisions of Order XIIIA of CPC, as applicable to the commercial disputes"

Referring the law on grant of dynamic Injunction as laid down in UTV Software (Supra), the Court permitted subsequent impleadment of mirror/redirect/alphanumeric websites that provide access to the Defendant website by filing an appropriate application.

The Court further noted that on 24 June 2019, it had directed MEITY to block the domain name "otorrents.com" and its URL https://otorrents.com. and it had issued necessary notifications calling upon various internet and telecom service providers registered under them to block the Defendant.

In pursuant to the discussions and observations made by J. Navin Chawla, the Court summarily decreed in terms of the prayers of the Plaintiff.

Advocates Sidharth Chopra, Suhasini Raina, Disha Sharma, Anjali Agrawal, and Sanidhya Rao appeared for Warner Bros.

Central Government Standing Counsel Nidhi Raman and Advocate Zubin Singh appeared for MEITY's Department of Telecommunications